I'm with Ralph on Ideal Windlasses... I just went through the windlass nightmare from hell rebuild, but mainly because the guy at Schaffer, (aka Ideal) doesn't know jack about the older models. In fact, they didn't even know my model existed and gave us bad info, bad parts and caused a lot of stress and wasted time and money. If you have an older Ideal and you don't have the paperwork, then I'd encourage you to look at a replacement. 7 months of misery... I really wish I'd bought the new one, but hind sight is 20/20.

I decided to rebuild mine vs replace it based on that bad info, fyi. Schaffer told me that the extra "ratchet" gear in the box was so the anchor could be manually ratcheted up by putting bars in the capstone. That isn't true. But I'm stuck with it now. It will power down, but I was told a controlled freefall is better. I can control it because mine has a handwheel on top of the capstone, not a nut. The other main reason I kept mine. I can quickly loosen or tigten the capstone without tools. =-)

However, I know lots of folks that have Galleymaid and they work great! And, Rick at Galleymaid won't steer you wrong. Great guy and super knowledgeable and he stands behind his work. A rare find in today's world.